VIDEOS: Troy's police chief speaks out about decision to hire public safety commissioner

By Danielle Sanzone

Saturday, December 1, 2012

TROY -- In no uncertain terms, Troy Police Chief John Tedesco was told by a member of the outgoing mayoral administration that his job was "dead" with the new city leaders.

Tedesco, in the wake of the vote Thursday night approving the 2013 budget with a $30,000 public safety commissioner, stated that the decision by the city is political in nature so the administration will have more control over the police department.

"My day consists of justifying things with the mayor and his staff. And they never tell me who makes these complaints," said Tedesco, who has been with the department for nearly 37 years years and was appointed chief by former Mayor Harry Tutunjian in 2010. "They're trying to control me to the extent that I'm not able to do my job to the best of my ability."

While Mayor Lou Rosamilia said he has not made a decision yet, there are several indications that the job will go to former Assistant Chief Anthony Magnetto, who was one of three finalists for Tedesco's job in 2010. The $30,000 figure would allow Magnetto, who retired last year, to still collect his full pension.

Conceding that the crime is up this year -- with at least six homicides so far in 2012 compared with no homicides last year -- he said that the overall crime statistics show that levels have been going down over the past five years. He also expects crime figures to go down even further next year with extra money in the budget for patrols. "You can't panic over one year of crime on the rise," he said.

Members of the city Council, however, felt that issues in city neighborhoods were "coming to a head," stated Councilwoman Nina Nichols, D-At Large, which was part of the reasoning behind the commissioner position, that was not initially in Mayor Lou Rosamilia's executive budget.

"There are a lot of unresolved crimes, arsons and homicides," said Nichols, who was a strong proponent of hiring a police commissioner. "This is not a personal attack on Chief Tedesco."

He feels, however, that Nichols is "blinded by ambition" and has been lobbying to create the commissioner position. "There are a lot of people in his ear," Tedesco said of Rosamilia.

Nichols, chair of the Public Safety Committee, retorted that it was Tedesco who was politicizing the issue since he described himself as a Republican chief after the vote Thursday.

Tedesco said that he associated himself with the GOP and due to that, if he did live in Troy, he would not have voted for Rosamilia.

"The mayor has always been a gentleman with me," Tedesco said, adding the mayor has yet to talk face to face with Tedesco since the vote.

Tedesco also felt the PBA was partially behind the reimplementation of the position.

"In reality, I have had very little conversation with anyone about a police commissioner. When you have one year of so many homicides and excessive violent crimes, I believe the chief might be overwhelmed in his position," said PBA head Bob Fitzgerald who said that Tedesco was a Democrat when he joined the department. "I didn't realize it broke down to 'R' or 'D' when you run a department."

Tedesco felt that a plan to indirectly remove him from office started as soon as the new administration was elected. That plan was, for all intensive purposes, completed when the Council voted 7-2 along party lines to create the public safety position, which is meant to oversee both the Fire and Police departments.

But Tedesco pointed out that Magneto, if he does get the job, would mainly have experience with the Police Department.

Tedesco considers Magneto to be a friend and they still meet regularly outside the department. They both joined the force in 1976 and were partners for years. "I don't want this to affect our friendship," Tedesco said.

Meanwhile, Tedesco said he had focused on decreasing the amount of overtime used by the department. Mike Fraser, the city spokesman, said the city spent $635,994 on police overtime in 2011 and $730,620 is budgeted for 2013. Tedesco said that figure used to be well over $1 million. This effort has been counteracted by the Council increasing overtime in response to higher crime rates in recent years. It was also Tedesco who caught onto a pattern of police sergeants abusing sick time to help colleagues boost their overtime, which was investigated by the state Attorney General.

Due to the lack of support from City Hall and not receiving what he perceived as needed resources, Tedesco said he became "bored" since he could not do his job. From this, he joined two nationwide job searches and went far in both processes but he has since dropped out of the searches. It was this lack of support, he said, that has resulted in two cases of needed disciplinary action in the department being in limbo. "I'm not afraid of disciplining people," he said. But, he added, that in some of the cases that have been publicly highlighted he did not find any excessive force that required discipline.

He said he retained an attorney, just in case his job is in jeopardy.

"I'm not going anywhere any time soon," he said, though he plans to retire in a few years at the age 62 after 40 years of service. "I will do everything that I can to make sure the Troy Police Department is not used as a political tool. They think I'm going to be silent, but I'm not."